Dispute with second hand car dealer over consumer rights

What do you mean my numerous sources?

Also, why are you muddying the waters with the "driving down the road and round the corner" when that isn't what happened here ?

You'd need to be Nostradamus to be selling cars these days!

That reminds me of the "the 15th pint must have been a bad one" line - if the 5000km were after another 100,000 km* had been done, you can hardly call the car a lemon.

If a car with 100,000km on it drove fine down the road, and for another 5000km, I would consider the dealer to have covered his side of the bargain (unless as others have stated he knew of a problem - but a) how do you prove such knowledge and b) it still drove fine for 5000km)

*I'm not remotely mechanically minded, and have no idea when gearboxes should be expected to wear out or fail, that's just by way of example.

"the reason he would be liable is magic words".

Not necessarily I would say

nothing magic about them

If a dealer isn't confident with the car would hold up then why would he buy it?

The dealer must have thought the car was sound. It wasn't.

The issue is whether the fault was in the car when the dealer sold it. It's only been 2 months and 5000km, so the fault must have been already there. therefor the dealer unknowingly sold a lemon, and as a professional business he is liable.

In my opinion, which is a useless as everyone elses here :)

Which law? Which statute in Irish law applies to this case?

Actually, don't even bother, been here before with this conversation, you lads can never, ever back up what you are saying. All you will do is the usual circular logic where you keep pointing at the sale of goods act and claiming consumer law applies. Its boring.

this is why it needs to be decided by the courts, what is fair, I don't think 7 weeks is an unfair amount of time to expect the gearbox to hold up

1 year no

you know this

its the same if you buy something new or old, if someone decides to not give you a refund on something you bought where will you end up

The statues are laborious and often updated by this that and the other

The facts remain that a dealer is not a private seller and the law is different in this regard

are people disagreeing on this being the case?

The problem with court is often this is beyond the small claims court and well then it can cost you money and you may not win

Not really. If I paid €1000 for a car and the engine blows, the dealer is hardly going to pay €3000 to fix it.

Realistically when you buy a second hand car for say €5000, that was €40000 new, you are getting it at a massive discount as you know full well there has been a lot of wear and tear and breakdowns will happen.

I agree with your example.

In that case the dealer should refund most or all of the purchase price.

If you bought a car for €1000, and the dealer told you it was in good shape, how long would you expect trouble-free motoring?

1 month? 3, maybe 6?

Being a purchaser of second hand Mercs over the years, the only thing I can be sure of is that I will be putting cash into them.

NCTs etc do not matter a shite.

If I was paying €1000 I'd take it for a long test drive. If nothing showed up then I'd buy it expecting no comeback.

It would depend a bit on the NCT, if it was valid for 6+ months having passed recently then I'd be happy to chance it.

If it was out of NCT then I wouldnt buy it.

If the OP purchased the car from a limited company, the invoice or receipt will show this, then they can only pursue that company if they secure a judgment. A director is protected by the veil of incorporation. The over 100 year old precedent in Salomon v Salomon still applies.

The veil can be lifted in certain circumstances but it wouldn't apply here. If they tried to sue a director personally (s)he would object and be awarded their costs.

Sending out the sheriff can also have limited effect as they cannot simply go in and take stock from a forecourt.

Old cars do indeed break down. There is a reasonable expectation, however, that it won't break down within a minimum time period, or else it is deemed as defective and the vendor is liable. It's nothing to do with there necessarily being anything wrong with it at the time of sale, it's to do with the vendor's obligations as a vendor. He shouldn't be selling pieces of sh1t that are about to fall apart, there is an onus on him that he only sells goods, the quality of which he should stand over should the unthinkable happen.

He has to do some due diligence before selling it. According to the law, if the clutch looks dodgy, he should replace it or mark it down accordingly while also letting the buyer know the clutch is hanging on by a thread. I'd bet good money that 90% of smaller dealers barely even give most cars more than a wash and an oil change, most of the time. They don't give a monkeys, especially the way the 2nd hand car market is these days. If the inspected clutch goes bang within a reasonable amount of time, he is still on the hook for it, even though he inspected it and missed it. It's his fault that he sold it/missed it, whatever way you want to look at it.

The only reason laws like this ever came about, remember, is because of cowboys preying on unsuspecting people in exactly this manner. Put a new fuse in a faulty plug, sell the faulty telly, tell the customer to eff off when he comes back etc. This stuff was going on for years and it's only recently that the pendulum has swung the other direction.

Anyway, it all boils down to personal interpretation.

If the clutch went after 6 days, you'd expect a new one.

If it went after 6 years, you'd never dream of asking for a refund.

There's a line somewhere in the middle of 6 days and 6 years where your expectations shift and for everyone, that line is in a different spot. It all depends on where the judge's line is on the day.

No but when you are told there is no warranty you know where you stand.

There's a sliding scale of full warranty for a number of years on a new car, to maybe 12 months on a car say 5 years old to little to no warranty on an old car.

The OP was fully informed by the seller of where he was on the scale.

100 posts from armchair lawyers and the OP is no further forward.